Handprints
by the sixth turk
Summary: Riku and Roxas could both pretend that they'd dealt with it. It still didn't change the fact that Sora was gone, leaving only memories behind. AU. Fluffy platonic Soriku, Namixas. Oneshot.


Sitting forward, Riku dusted off the computer screen with the sleeve of his oversized hoodie. The blue fabric was starting to fray apart around the wrists and elbows, but he wore it anyway. Almost without thinking, his fingers brushed the slightly raised edges of the paint splattered on the stomach. Standing out in stark relief against the pocket were two white handprints.

A small smile tugged at his lips, memories of the distant day surfacing.

A bright smile, behind which were two even brighter blue eyes. Laughter, floating on the gentle breeze. Warm sunshine and warm feelings inside. Two small hands pressing against his stomach, followed by the voice he's known for what seemed like all of his life.

"_Sorry Riku!" Sora said, a faint blush coloring his cheeks. It did nothing to diminish his perpetual grin. "I didn't mean to fall into you like that." His eyes widened slightly as he took in the dripping white handprints now gracing the front of Riku's favorite blue hoodie. Sora looked down at his own hands, covered with the incriminating paint, and then back up at Riku. His smile became somewhat sheepish as he contemplated the damage._

_Gingerly holding the fabric away from his stomach, Riku inspected the marks, then let the hem drop and shrugged loosely. "It's not a big deal."_

"_But that was your favorite!" Sora protested, gesturing widely and flinging white paint in a wide circle around where he stood._

"_It still is," said Riku. "So what if you got acrylic paint all over it? Now I have something to guilt-trip you with."_

_Sora went to the side of the house and turned on the garden hose, leaving smears of paint all over it. He ran icy-cold water over his hands, trying without success to scrub them clean._

_Riku leaned inside the sliding glass door to the kitchen counter and retrieved the paper towels. He ripped a few from the roll and tucked it underneath his arm before ambling over to where Sora was succeeding in drenching himself thoroughly._

"_Here," he said, offering the towels. Sora wiped at his hands, somehow managing to end up with a streak of white down his cheek and a blotch slowly dripping down his knee. Riku shook his head, fighting an urge to laugh. The look on Sora's face was akin to that of a puppy during bath time._

_Riku picked up the driest paper towel he could find and, wadding it into a bundle small enough to fit into his hand, efficiently wiped the remaining paint from Sora's hands, face, and knee. Standing, he tossed the trash in the nearly full bin standing nearby and raised an eyebrow._

_Sora popped to his feet and shook himself off. Water sprayed everywhere. Riku blinked and used his sleeve to get rid of the droplets that had landed on his cheeks and eyelashes._

"_Well, I guess we should maybe finish with painting the fence," Sora said. Most of the boards were already white and drying in the sun, but there were a few brown ones near the end that still needed to be done. The grass was streaked white beneath the sections Sora had done, and splotches of the original color showed through. Riku's, on the other hand, were evenly covered with not a stray brushstroke marring their surface._

_Sora harrumphed and shrugged, his amiable nature not affected in the least. He spun on his heel and went to the gate, turning and gesturing for Riku to follow him._

"_Come on, Riku! Let's go get some ice cream! Roxas said he'd meet us the park when we were done with the fence."_

"…"

_Riku looked at the fence again, then down at his hoodie and the garden hose, which were both liberally daubed with Sora's handprints. Screw the fence. Getting Sora away from anything to do with paint was probably the smartest thing to do._

_He ruffled Sora's hair. "Sure, why not? I think you've left enough memories on my hoodie for now."_

_Sora grinned and ran out the gate, blue eyes alight. "We'll make more later!"_

_Hoping that making more memories would not involve any undue application of sea-salt ice cream to his hoodie, Riku followed._

The doorbell rang. Shaking himself free of the memories, Riku pushed the computer chair back and got up, hands burrowing back into the worn sleeves of his hoodie. Stretched by time, they covered all but the tips of his long fingers. Only by the virtue of much practice was he able to turn the doorknob.

"Hi," he said as the door swung open.

"Hey," said Roxas. The perpetual toque covered his blond hair; Riku was sure that he had more different toques than Sora had ways of getting into trouble. "You've really got to stop locking me out one of these days." A small smile took any possible sting out of his words.

"One of these days, you should start remembering your keys," said Riku. "You're almost an adult and I still have to remind you about all this stuff. You make me feel old!"

"Heh, sorry," Roxas said. He was already halfway to the refrigerator, no doubt making a beeline for the leftover chicken stew that Namine had brought over the day before. The comforting sounds of clanking dishes and the microwave floated out from the kitchen. Riku smiled and went back into the living room, sweeping Roxas' abandoned textbooks off to the side before sinking onto the couch and curling his feet underneath him.

Sora had always said that Riku looked like a monk when he sat like that.

"_Meditating again?"_

_Riku looked up from the couch, where he'd been sitting for the past hour in the company of his PS2. Thumbing the start button, he paused the game and raised a questioning eyebrow._

"_You always sit with your legs kind of crossed underneath you, but not really. Like one of those monks with the little caps who do this." Sora plunked himself on the floor, cross-legged with his index fingers and thumbs forming circles on his knees, and the rest of his fingers sticking straight out. He sat up tall, closed his eyes, and made a low humming noise before cracking an eyelid and peering at Riku. Popping to his feet again, he threw out his arms in an expansive shrug._

"_I do?" Riku had never really paid attention to anyone's sitting habits, much less his own. Although he had noticed that Sora liked to sit with chin on his knees and arms wrapped around his calves. The subject in question crossed to the cabinet and pulled out another controller, plugging it into the console and managing to get the cord hopelessly tangled on his way back to the couch. With a sigh that he really didn't mean, Riku uncurled his feet from underneath him and pushed off the cushions. The springs gave a tired sigh. He unplugged the controller again and unwound the cord before replacing it and sitting back down, curling his feet beneath him._

_Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sora attempting to mimic his posture. He finally managed to twist himself into something that looked more than a little bit uncomfortable, only to lose his balance and topple over into Riku. He grinned sheepishly from his upside-down position atop Riku's knees before pushing himself upright with his own knees against his chest and arms around his calves. He hadn't even dropped the controller._

"_Okay, I'm ready!" he said, grinning. His bright blue eyes were alight, reflecting the smile._

_Riku pushed the start button again, smiling slightly when Sora's excited bouncing made the couch squeak. The cushions twitched up and down with his motions. While most of his attention was on the game, Riku still kept half an eye on Sora. There was no telling when he'd come tumbling over to land in his lap again._

The PS2 sat in the corner, cables wound neatly with twist ties and tucked alongside. Riku got off the couch, the springs sighing predictably, and went over to brush a finger along the surface. A thin line of darker black showed through the gray of the dust that had gathered along the top.

The true surface concealed beneath a coating of something unremarkable and utterly dreary. It was fitting, somehow. Riku looked out the window, half expecting to see rain. The sunshine seemed out of place, wrong somehow, when there wasn't a certain pair of blue eyes to hold the brightest rays in their depths.

A picture stood in its frame on the windowsill. Picking it up, Riku studied it, though he'd seen it so many times before. He didn't hear Roxas calling from the kitchen until something poked him in the shoulder.

"I said, do you want coffee?" Roxas said, the tone of his voice suggesting that he'd already asked the same question more than once. He held an empty coffeepot in one hand and several sticks of licorice in the other.

Quickly setting down the frame on the sill behind him, Riku crossed his arms and summoned a fair approximation of his usual smile. "The coffee's coming out, huh?"

"Yes," Roxas growled. He glared at the pile of textbooks and scattered papers on the end of the couch.

"How many dissertations do you have to write this time?" Riku asked. His roommate hated coffee with a passion. Riku knew perfectly well that Roxas only drank it when he was juggling at least three assignments - all due the next morning.

"Five," said Roxas.

Riku winced. "Ouch. Better add some sugar and make it extra strong, then."

Nodding, Roxas gnawed at a stick of licorice and wandered back to the kitchen. Riku could hear the sound of running water and the gurgle of the ancient coffee machine as it struggled through the large amounts of coffee beans required for a college student's all-nighter. The scent wafted through the house, and Riku could imagine the disgusted look on Roxas' face as he contemplated either drinking the foul brew or falling asleep with his papers left unfinished.

Eventually, Roxas came back into the living room, balancing a large mug full of coffee thick enough to be pudding with a plate of cookies.

"Where did those come from?" Riku demanded.

"Namine felt sorry for me," said Roxas, his mouth already full as he plunked down on the couch and snagged a textbook. He patted his pockets for a few seconds before realizing that he'd dropped his pen on the floor back in the hallway. He got up, and with a look at Riku, said, "Don't. Touch. The. Cookies." He darted after his pen, nearly losing his floppy socks in the process.

Riku snorted. Roxas might be fast, but he was faster. Snatching a cookie from the plate, he beat a hasty retreat from the living room and dashed up the stairs to the relative safety of his room. He could vaguely hear Roxas uttering threats from downstairs, but from the sounds of things, they were directed against the coffee and not him.

Flopping onto his bed, Riku pillowed his head on his hands and let his feet hang off the edge. He stared up at the walls, plastered with photos of his friends and various posters. With a sigh, he rolled over onto his stomach and gazed up at the 5x7 taped above the scratched wooden headboard.

No photo could ever truly capture Sora's eyes. The color was there, but the inner fire never was. Riku hated how it made him look lifeless, like a doll with a beatific smile and dead eyes. He rubbed his thumbs over the worn blue material of his hoodie, just looking at the photo. The two of them in the park with Roxas, smiling and laughing. Sora's ice cream melting off its stick. Roxas with his toque on in the middle of summer, blond hair poking out beneath it. And himself, half-grin on his face and Sora's handprints drying in acrylic paint on the front of his favorite hoodie.

_All memories._

Riku sat up and tucked his feet beneath him, pulling out the pocket of his hoodie so he could look at it. He flipped his hand around and placed it palm-down on the white mark.

"His hands were small back then, weren't they?"

Startled, Riku jerked his hand away from the print and turned his head to find Roxas standing in the doorway with another cup full of pudding-coffee.

"Yeah," Riku said, his voice cracking on the word.

Roxas came over and sat on the bed next to Riku, setting his mug on the desk after nearly spilling it all over the blankets.

"I've always wondered why you kept that picture," Roxas said, his voice quiet. "And the one downstairs."

Riku said nothing. Nothing ever stayed the same. Things were different, too different. They could both pretend that they'd dealt with it, but shoving it in a corner and letting it collect dust only worked until you wiped the dust off and saw what used to be underneath.

"I should get back to stuff," said Roxas, pushing himself off the bed and retrieving his coffee. He paused in the doorway, one hand on the frame, and half-turned to face Riku again. "Sometimes I wonder if anything's even worth it anymore."

Riku nodded, not entirely trusting his voice to work properly. Roxas padded down the steps, trailing the scent of too-sweet coffee and pencil wood.

It had been ten years and still Riku couldn't stop hoping that, one day, he would see the sun in a pair of blue eyes just one more time.

"_I think you've left enough memories on my hoodie for now."_

"_We'll make more later!"_

Those words, spoken so long ago in the purest meaning of friendship and love. Riku wrapped his arms around his calves and rested chin on knees. A solitary tear escaped the corner of his eye and traced a glistening path down his cheek.

_Though the times we shared together are dead to all but my memories, I still remember you. How could I not? Your fingerprints are on my heart like they're on my hoodie._


End file.
